A BuzzFeed columnist has declared that “Cars don’t belong on the streets of big cities, and we should do everything in our power to get rid of them.” She can’t be serious? The headline is “We Should Ban Cars from Big Cities. Seriously.”

We’ve seen this idea proposed by environmentalists from time to time based on “climate change,” and by urban planners in the name of creating a few blocks of open space, but Jessie Singer’s advocacy of a total ban is largely in response to Tuesday’s terrorist attack in New York City.

Singer’s column clearly has management’s approval, given that the site’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, promoted it in a tweet shortly after it appeared Friday morning….

As to the terrorism angle, Singer writes:

Vehicular terrorism is still a minuscule part of the overall picture of pedestrians being killed by cars. But it is a rising tide, with automobiles used as weapons this year alone in Charlottesville, Barcelona, London, and Stockholm. But before terrorism experts start calling for a radical redesign of our security culture and the NYPD permanently surrounds Trump Tower with dump trucks, let’s make this easy: Ban cars in New York City. Boom, you saved all those lives.

The inclusion of Singer’s obviously irrelevant dig at Trump Tower is another editorial failure. Given her criticisms of bike path protections, why didn’t she cite Gracie Mansion, where New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio lives?

…one can hardly imagine ISIS’s glee if New York City actually tried to implement a car ban or even to severely restrict vehicular traffic in reaction to a terror attack.

A final irony is that a passenger vehicle ban would almost certainly not extend to delivery trucks, unless Jessie Singer believes that food, clothing, and other supplies could somehow deliver themselves….

Ban would also not apply to moving vans (u-haul) or livery service (elites in limos will love having riff raff off the road). Probably not taxis (big political givers) though Uber & Lfyt may go (hello exorbitant taxi rates). Then someone will come up with the idea for a city road license. Thruway socialism.